Railway Reform: Toolkit for Improving Rail Sector Performance - ppiaf

Railway Reform: Toolkit for Improving Rail Sector Performance
Case Study: Australian Rail Track Corporation
tensive reform of the Australian railway industry. As part of this, they established
open access to the rail network and created the Australian Rail Track Corporation
(ARTC), which began operations on 1 July 1998 and represented one of the most
significant steps taken during these reforms. 133 It initially managed the interstate
network of the federal railway but, over time, its responsibilities have expanded
to include managing much of the interstate rail network in five states, plus the
Hunter Valley export coal lines (Figure 1).
Box 1
ARTC Network Growth
• July 1998, commences operations with ex-AN main lines and Victorian
interstate lines
• In 2000, Tarcoola to Alice Springs line transferred on a long lease to the
private company constructing Alice Springs– Darwin line
• In 2004, NSW main lines and the Hunter Valley coal network taken over,
through long-term lease
• From 2004, assumed responsibility to maintain and operate NSW rural
network, owned by NSW state-owned Rail Infrastructure Corporation,
which collected access revenue and negotiated access.
• In 2010, took over the Queensland main line, between New South Wales
border and Acacia Ridge in Brisbane, through a long-term lease.
Until 2004, the key ARTC activity was maintaining and operating the interstate
main lines in Victoria, South Australia, and West Australia (as far as Kalgoorlie).
In 2004, ARTC assumed control of a large part of the New South Wales (NSW)
network and became responsible for major Federal Government investment in
the network and maintaining, under contract, the NSW rural network. Two other
adjustments occurred to the ARTC network during the last decade (see Box 1)
and ARTC is now responsible for the interstate track from Kalgoorlie in the west
via Melbourne and Sydney to Brisbane in Queensland, together with the Hunter
Valley coal lines in New South Wales (NSW). The net result is that the original
network of 4,443 route-km managed by the Australian National (AN) access unit
has now increased to 7,112 route-km, of which 8 percent is multiple-track. The
ARTC also maintains the regional branchline network in NSW of 2,828 route-km
of operational track and a similar volume of non-operational lines. 134
2 Corporate Objectives and Management
The corporate mission of ARTC is, ‘In collaboration with our customers, through innovative
and creative strategies, expand the industry, provide efficient access, and
enhance the national transport logistics network’ with its vision being to ‘Ensure rail is
an integral, sustainable element of the nation’s transport logistics network’.
More concretely, it has four principal functions (see Box 2). First, it is the ‘onestop-shop’
for track access, which was achieved rapidly in Victoria (lease) and
Western Australia (through a wholesale arrangement) but not in NSW and
133 Appendix A describes the Australian rail sector and summarizes developments that
led to creating ARTC.
134 This includes partially constructed line as well as closed lines which still require
maintenance of bridges, culverts, etc.
The World Bank Page 308